We have never met, though I had long-standing professional relationship with his brother, Bill, as a cover and editorial photographer for Muscle Media and Energy magazines.

Shawn posted this essay on Facebook recently, and I decided to share it here.

It speaks to the wisdom of age and how it challenges our perceptions of life and how many of us live it.

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Everyone already knows the benefits of a healthy lifestyle.

To the faithful, I’m preaching to the choir.

But like everything else in life – and I mean everything – we reach a point of diminishing returns.

Training 2 hours a day, 7 days a week, AND eating perfectly, AND getting enough rest and recovery tend to sideline everything else, like family, friends, and loved ones who will eventually forget your name in the process.

The fact is there isn’t enough time in a day to do everything you want to do if other people in your life mean anything to you.

All those hours in the gym, on the track, in the pool mean what if you have nothing else in your life?

Your world gets really small, really fast.

This becomes more obvious at middle age when the time available to balance health and family are on a short fuse.

The time have come to reassess priorities if you want to live a fulfilling life.

Middle age is a wake-up call for men who’ve lived their lives for themselves: their goals, their objectives…themselves.

It’s fine when you’re in your 20’s and chasing a gold medal, or in your 30’s 80-hour weeks and endless travel are the only way to financial freedom.

But once you hit your middle 40’s – and beyond – you realize that the most important things in life involve people other than yourself.

In other words “being 7% bodyfat, ripped and living your life obsessed with fitness, exercise and some radical diet” is not a panacea.

Coming from a guy recognized as the epitome of fitness, this is something worth pondering.

THE GYM WORLD

At my gym there are more exercise addicted middle-aged men than there are gold-diggers, which is saying a lot in a town like Houston.

These men live for themselves all day, all night until one morning while on another in an endless series of runs, a torn Achilles tendon flips the switch and all they have left is a wheelchair in an empty room.

I’ve seen it more times than I can count.

Most of these men are single, divorced, living alone.

No cats. No dogs. Nothing to slow them down, interfere with the seamless obsession with me.

To those of us who’ve been around a while, we know the symptoms well.

The carrying on about how “working out is better than the alternative,” and “addiction is in the eye of the beholder” crap is as transparent as an open door.

Addicts with ever-shrinking lives memorize every excuse in the book to justify what they do.

But in the end, they’re talking to themselves because the rest of us have left destiny to do what it does best, which is pummel the weak.

As Shawn says [and I’ll leave it to his article to elaborate], “if you are using fitness to chase self-esteem vs. using self-esteemto fuel your fitness, you are on the infinite treadmill to nowhere.”

I finally leaned the meaning of this around the time I hit my 50th birthday and landed in a hospital with a high fever and sky-high liver enzymes due to over-exercise.

My life looked a lot like the people I describe.

I was told to stay out of the gym for a month, get a trainer who could help me get my workouts back in balance…and maybe see a shrink for what was obviously exercise addiction.

I was single, self-obsessed, spiritually lost.

Sometimes it takes hitting rock bottom before we can land on our feet.

Long story short, I now cross-train with weights 3 days a week for 1 hour, not 3.

I do 1 hour of cardio, stretching and foam rolling on the days in between, and take a day off.

I still eat well, but I allow myself to enjoy a glass of wine, french toast, and yes, the occasional caramel chocolate treat.

And since I’m not working out all day long, I also have time to spend time with the woman in my life and our zoo of animals.

It took a long time for me to learn and appreciate the art of balance, but now that I have I have never felt so fulfilled, or been more productive.

I’ve covered this couple in another blog [search bar], but I thought it was worth further mention, given Sally Wood’s illuminating comments.

Among them:

Speaking of their age gap, Sally told the Telegraph: ‘Um, well, I know it’s there. And I wish it wasn’t, but it is. I think I had to say “I can’t do this because of the age”, or I just had to let it go and take it all on board. At no point, years ago, did I say to myself: “I think I’ll go out with someone twice my age”, but that is what has happened.’

As everyone by now knows, the most important thing in the world is health followed closely by money.

The rest can wait.

According to Vanguard’s How America Saves 2014, which provides statistics about the more than 3 million people who have a defined contribution retirement plan managed by Vanguard, the median 401(k) balance for those over 55 was less than $75,000 in 2013:

Please explain to me how the hell you’re going to hang out in Cabo or Aspen without a large career income or passive income from investments?

You’re not.

You’re going to stay home with your cats and hope your death is swift and painless because the rest isn’t worth the journey.

TWO EXCEPTIONS

1] Yogis

2] Tenured University Professors

In the first case, the senior yogi may live in a tree, but women in his classes find his acetic existence and peaceful vibe an extraordinarily attractive alternative to the wolves of Wall Street.

So he can expect to get laid by beautiful women who don’t care what he doesn’t have until they do, at which time they go back to the wolves for another round.

Tenured university professors make a couple hundred grand a year, never lose their jobs, get Summers off, and hold the destinies of their students in their hands.

It kinda’ sells itself.

The only problem is that most women at ivy league schools envision large homes in nice neighborhoods, expensive cars, private schools for their kids, and at least 3 vacations a year.

Needless to say, his salary won’t cut that, nor will his eventual savings which are destined for social security support.

So we’re back to square one.

With this as a backdrop, how exactly do Baby Boomers acquire enough capital to retire comfortably without robbing the Federal Reserve or winning a slip and fall against Kroger?

First, they have to have something of value to sell that offers windfall potential.

What about their homes?

Yea, I’m laughing because homeowners between age 50 and 65 are most likely to carry a mortgage.

The percentage rose from 60% in 1992 to more than 70% by 2010.

What about saving more money?

For guys 50 and older looking at potentially 20 more years of putting whatever away, if you can invest an extra $5,000 per year for the next 15 years, you would have an extra $146,000 at age 65:

If you can leave it alone until 70, you could have approximately $220,000 in added net worth based on historical stock market averages.

But what kind of life are we looking at here?

Most people in better neighborhoods spend $200,000 in 6 months just maintaining their lifestyles.

You’ll be watching every single solitary bill, praying your roof doesn’t leak, and clipping coupons while annoying the people in line behind you at Whole Foods.

You’re better off dead.

The sad truth of the matter is that your priorities were ass-backwards back in your 20’s when you thought you were immortal because you could nail dates at the drop of a hat even if you couldn’t afford to take them to Jack-In-The-Box.

It didn’t take long to notice that no matter what you looked like all the wealthy older men were taking your girlfriends to the Bahamas for the weekend.

Then it dawned on you that youth and beauty only work for highly-precisioned gold-diggers of exceptional beauty; actors, models and entertainers with the wings of angels; and singers like Robert Plant.

And since you couldn’t find a niche for yourself in any of the above, you were screwed.

After all, what’s the point in getting old if you can’t afford to enjoy it?

People are always talking about people pursuing things they love.

But understand that love is always secondary to common sense.

If piano tuning does not pave the way for millions in an investment account by age 50, do something you hate.

You’ll love yourself in the end.

POSTSCRIPT

For you older men of average means who have daughters of exceptional beauty, please explain to them how to leverage what they do have in exchange for everything you don’t so you can piggy-back on their success.

You’re welcome.

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A FEW TRUTHS ABOUT MONEY

1] Lots of money won’t make you happy, but not enough of it will make you miserable.

2] One million dollar homes in large cities are often tear downs situated in up and coming neighborhoods.

3] 250k/ year is considered upper middle class.

4] When politicians talk about raising taxes on “millionaires and billionaires” they’re including everyone who falls in #3.

5] The average 0ne bedroom suite at a luxury hotel property is $1000/night and everything else is a la carte.

6] Dining out in a big city usually costs $200 on up with wine and tip.

7] The average luxury automobile starts in the $80,000 range.

8] Whole Foods bills usually run 20k-30k/year with wine.

9] Luxury handbags usually run $2000, and women’s shoes, $500-1000 which you’ll need to keep in mind if you happen to live with a woman.

10] First Class airfare from Houston to Los Angeles is in the $1200 to $1400 range. Double it if you’re taking your girlfriend.

If You’re Lucky You Get Old is an exhibition by photographer Freya Najade, chronicling the first thing she learned from the elderly people she visited whilst traveling the United States. At a time where the elderly are ostracized, or, in Najade’s words, ‘hardly seem to exist’, conjuring images of ‘wrinkles, disease and decay’, the artist was surprised that the people she met and photographed were not only proud of their age but were ‘still falling in love and breaking up.

Many of you will find these images difficult to look at.

They are largely UN-retouched, straightforward, brutally honest.

In short, not something we see a lot of in in a culture obsessed with youth and beauty.

Most older people are invisible to us, irrelevant, and for all intents and purposes, gone.

But as the oldest Baby Boomers edge closer to 70, we’re about to fall victim to the very culture we created.

Richard Gere is decades younger than the man in the above photo, but you’d only know this from a birth certificate.

Unlike many men his age, Gere has chosen to let himself go.

This is a choice, not an inevitable destiny.

That he is dating the stunning Alejandra Silva, 32, mother of one, only adds to the cliche that love is only as deep as one’s investment portfolio.

So let’s take a look at other men his age and then let you decide what constitutes “old”

If any of the following 5 men were seen in the company of a 32 year old woman, you’d never hear a word from critics who claim “it’s all money, honey,” followed closely by “Ewwww,” and, of course, the old standbys, “Creepy” and “cringe-worthy.”

1] Sting, 63

2] Bruce Springsteen, 65

3] Samuel L. Jackson, 66

Jeff Bridges, 65

Kurt Russell, 64

In this case, I chose rich, famous actors who’s job it is to stay fit.

But many civilians [men not known in the context of popular culture] who happen to be in their middle 60’s are even fitter.

Men who practice Crossfit, for example, are some of the fittest guys I have ever known, shaming men half their age.

It’s all a choice.

How much effort we’re willing to put forth to be the very best that we can be?

For many, it’s very little: Consume a few veggies [when absolutely, positively necessary], do a little walking…and maybe add a glass of water between shots of vodka.

This is normal, average.

For the rest of us, life is a full-on crucible filled with challenges no one ever thought we’d be strong enough to face.

But here we are in the midst of a never-ending war of attrition, doing what we have to do to stand tall in the face of adversity.

Talk about relevance.

Staying fit is the very definition of it, closely followed closely by money.

Of course, there is disagreement about the order, as evidenced by Richard Gere.